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Educational Hunting
Stories - F
Elk
Hunter
For
Breakfast?
In
2017,
I
was
unnerved
at
pre-
dawn.
I
leave
my
Coleman
lantern
mantle
glowing
on
cold
nights
to
circulate
air
and
prevent
frost
buildup
on
the
tent
ceiling.
At
5:20
AM
I
eased
up
in
my
sleeping
bag
and
turned
up
the
lantern
flame
in
preparation
to
go
out
to
“heed
nature”
before
dressing.
An
immediate
super
loud
snarl
warped
into
a
scream.
That
mountain
lion
had
not
just
fortuitously
been
walking
by
at
the
moment.
It
must
have
been
bedded
down
ten
to
fifteen
feet
outside
my
door
waiting
for
me
to
again
emerge
at
predawn.
I
yelled
back
at
it
-
and
gave
it
ten
minutes
to
leave
before
I
headed
to
the
latrine
pole.
(Yes,
I
listened carefully while sitting there.)
I
went
to
camp
after
noon
to
see
what
had
occurred.
The
snow
had
burned
off
outside
my
tent,
so
there
were
neither
tracks
nor
indication
of
a
bed.
The
snowy
tree
line
was
a
different
story.
Multiple
fresh
lion
tracks
wove
in
and
out
of
the
trees
for
several
hundred
yards.
The
photo
shows
a
4.5-5-inch
track.
Over
the
next
few
days,
I
intercepted
more
fresh
lion
tracks
during
my
hunt
prowling.
The
“hunter
grapevine”
disclosed
that
another
single
hunter
five
miles
away
also
had
a
lion
enter
his
camp.
Additional
evidence
of
puma
presence
was
that
not
one
deer
nor
deer
tracks
were
observed,
a
highly
unusual
occurrence.
In
addition,
the
elk
population
in
the